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Friday, January 18, 2013

Mobile Customer Services Need UC

UC
is not just a single product or service, but is a combination of device
independent, communication applications that can be used for both
person-to-person contacts, as well as for direct user interactions with
automated business applications. According to analyst firm Frost &
Sullivan, 65% of consumers are now demanding self-service around the clock,
rather than waiting to connect to a call center agent. (Surprise, surprise!) Because of the rapid consumer
adoption of multi-modal smartphones and tablets, where the flexible choice of
user interfaces from a single mobile device is more necessary than at a wired
desktop, Mobile UC is therefore becoming more important to customer
interactions with self-service applications before talking contextually to a
live person.

Mobile
consumers are all grabbing the latest and greatest multi-modal smartphones and
tablets of their choice, but business organizations are just starting to
realize its not just “employee BYOD” security that they need to be concerned
about. With mobile consumers increasingly accessing online, self-service
applications, coupled with UC-enabled “click-for-live-assistance,” as well as
time-sensitive, personalized alerts and notifications, the customer service bar
has been raised for traditional contact center responsibilities. This will not
only make overall customer services more accessible, flexible, and cost
efficient, but it will increase customer satisfaction by providing more direct
access to information.

Although
virtualized, “cloud” based business and communication software applications
have already been increasingly implemented for internal use by employees,
moving mobile customer self-service applications to the “clouds” can provide
greater operational flexibility and business performance benefits than legacy,
premise-based call center technologies.

Where Will Mobile Apps Live? In Public
and Private “Clouds!”

Self-service
“mobile apps” that organizations want to offer mobile consumers for business
needs must have the following characteristics:

·Have to be accessible
from anywhere

·Have to accommodate all
popular consumer mobile devices

·Have to have minimal
impact on the user’s device, i.e., be extremely “thin” and not normally require
downloading any software application changes to an endpoint’s software
“client.”

·Where required, provide
for authentication and encryption of any data or transactions that are involved
in the application. This will be applicable for those applications that will
available only to authorized customers.

·Provide easy access to
relevant community social networking between customers

·Last, but not least, be
UC-enabled for a mobile user to flexibly escalate from any self-service
application to access live assistance in any form of contact

(I’m
sure there may be more requirements for different vertical market applications,
but this is just a top-of-mind basic list for what the customer will want.)

Given
that “mobile applications” will be software based, they will constantly be
changing and evolving. In addition, “consumer BYOD” means that there will be a
variety of mobile and desktop devices and operating systems that must be served
by a set of consistent versions of online applications. So, it won’t be just
one software application that must interface to the customers and their
smartphones, tablets, or laptops, but a matched set of every application that
must also share the same databases in common. This makes the challenge of
developing, supporting, and managing all self-service applications a lot more
complex, and demands that such applications be centralized and location independent
for mobile use.

Clearly,
this means that “cloud” solutions, whether public, private, or hybrid, are the
only practical approach to the challenge of universal BYOD. However,
multi-modal mobility requirements also means that all self-service applications,
whatever the medium chosen the end user, has to be UC enabled in order to allow
flexible contact with live assistance on demand. This will be particularly
important, as mobile customers using online self-service apps, will often
require the kind of technical assistance that employees get from a “Help
Desk.”

The New Role For Channel Partners and Consultants To Help Organizations
Plan and Implement Customized, Cloud-based, UC-enabled Mobile Applications?

While
there are many business benefits to be gained by providing UC-enabled mobile
self-services through cloud-based applications, the real challenge is in how to
do it. Not only is it complex, but also most organizations will never have the
IT resources to take on all the ongoing responsibilities for developing,
integrating, and maintaining all the customized software involved.

Although we can all envision the future of business communications and the role of
self-service applications, the technology tools must still be strategically
applied by expertise which is not readily available from internal IT resources.
Such expertise therefore has to come from support organizations that are
already familiar with operational needs, as well as knowledgeable about new
UC-enabled technologies from more than one vendor.

Forget the days when a phone system supplier had all the piece-parts for “business
communications.” Today, vendor channel partners, along with independent
consultants, are becoming the trusted advisors for implementation planning,
technology support, and ongoing management of UC-enabled applications. They
won’t replace all the responsibilities of internal IT staffs, but they can provide the basic
services needed to move old, premise-based and desktop applications into the
complexities of UC-enabled, mobilized applications from private, public, and
hybrid“clouds.”

Most
telephone system vendors, as well as the public carriers, have seen the
“writing on the clouds,” and are quickly moving to support the next
generation of IP telephony, video, messaging, mobility, and UC through
hosted/managed services that are “cloud” based. Not only are they developing
the necessary software tools for such transitions, but are also helping their
VARs and channel partners become qualified to implement and
support customized business communications through “cloud” based application
services. Take a look at a recent podcast
discussion with 8x8 on this subject.

Watch this Mobile UC evolution continue to impact the customer service
market in 2013.